


Kaleidoscope

by Lyssandra_Med



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post War, Alternate Universe - Pre War, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Blood Magic, Dark Hermione Granger, F/F, Ink Magic, Not Epilogue Compliant, Pureblood Culture (Harry Potter), Pureblood Politics (Harry Potter), Pureblood Society (Harry Potter), Ritual Magic, runic magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:21:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24188083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyssandra_Med/pseuds/Lyssandra_Med
Summary: Sometimes the only way forward is back.Sometimes the best-laid plans still crash apart and fail.Sometimes you try something with the best of intentions, only to ruin it all.If only Hermione could remember what she had been trying to accomplish in the first place.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Bellatrix Black Lestrange
Comments: 26
Kudos: 147
Collections: Time Travel Bellamione





	1. The Rabbit Hole

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter has been beta'd for my ridiculous (and often atrocious) grammar by the lovely [ Wolf_Keryon7](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolf_Keryon7/pseuds/Wolf_Keryon7) and [ Chipperdyke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chipperdyke/pseuds/chipperdyke) , many kudo's to them both for being so kind as to help me.
> 
> I'm going to try and make this a priority to write along with A Better Life. We'll see if I manage that.

They were coming. Door after door had crashed, cracked and split apart by maddened spells and frantic Snatchers that knew their lives were on the line. They would succeed, or die.  _ She _ would finish this last task, or die.

There was no other choice. There were no other options -  _ barring somehow tearing everything down and no matter how far she had fallen she still held onto  _ **_some_ ** _ sense of restraint _ \- that could send her from this chamber. The five year anniversary of Harry’s death at that final -  _ even though it  _ **_wasn’t_ ** _ final, wasn’t even  _ **_close_ ** _ to being the final  _ \- battle, soon to be her own death day if she wasn’t quick about this.

The ritual she had chosen for this was untested -  _ because of course it was, there hadn’t been any  _ **_time_ ** _ to test it _ \- and the results uncertain -  _ because if she were going to go all out and do something blatantly insane she might as well go all the bloody way _ \- and even if it managed to work out there was still no certainty that  _ she _ would succeed. There were more linchpins to this plan than she would like but, again, that was kind of the point.

Last-ditch efforts and all that.

Besides, there was nothing like a good, high chance of absolute failure and death to get her adrenaline pumping. It wouldn’t be the first time she had decided to put her life on the line in service to their cause and -  _ more likely _ \- it wouldn’t be the last. So long as this adventure didn’t end in five minutes with her dead and covered with viscera or shot off through the cosmos on a one way trip to who-knew-where.

Hermione clapped once with all the excitement she could muster, a wide grin plastering itself to her face with an intensity that would have put the Cheshire Cat to shame. Nothing for it but to try, not like she had anything else left to do. She threw the final rune off into the pyre and prepared herself for whatever madness could develop. 

Off to a different time, a different land. Perhaps even sent off towards the future instead of the past. 

It didn’t matter.

_ Anything  _ at all would be better than this monumental shit-heap of a present and if she  _ did _ end up dying, well.

If she died at least she could greet Death and say that she had done  _ something  _ instead of  _ nothing. _ Rest was arguably a far better outcome than no rest, she reasoned, and while it would be a disappointing end to her rather colourful life she could at least say that she went out swinging.

The rune at the bottom of the pyre caught. Magic flooded from it, from the Earth and the Old and the Wild. Untamed magic, unfiltered and  _ raw _ in a way that so few ever had the chance to interact with. It forced itself around Hermione with all the power of a hurricane, sliding down her throat and leaving behind itself just the faintest taste of bitter almond.

Hermione fainted.

_ She _ awoke.

\---

Horace was bone tired. One could even say he had a hangover. The night before had been filled up with more firewhisky than he cared to think about and surely more than Aberforth kept on hand for old friends. It  _ had _ been a fun night, up until the moment he couldn’t remember anything, and the blackout had been  _ long. _ Each of them were plastered half to death before midnight croaked its last and if his broken memories were anything at all to go by then he was just about thirty minutes off the Old Goat coming down to see where he was.

Best he looked presentable then, if his memory could be trusted, and if only for his own constitution rather than Dumbledore’s appeasement. Gods but that stick in the mud could be a stickler for rules when he wanted, and while there was nothing at all that Horace found wrong about keeping up appearances, it was  _ summer. _ Just because Albus had been given reign of the Welcome Committee didn’t make him Merlin, and there was no one else around here to see him in disarray other than all his colleagues.

Colleagues who had -  _ arguably _ \- seen him in far worse condition and seen far  _ more _ of him than they had ever wanted to see by the time his first year of tenure was up.

_ Fuck it, _ Horace thought, swaying onto his feet with a face green to the gills.  _ Albus can deal. _

\---

St. Mary’s wasn’t what one would call a  _ nice _ establishment. Hell, one might not even call it a good orphanage. One might call it  _ shit, _ and other similar adjectives. It was closer to a halfway house and further from a church than a brothel situated deep within the inner circles of Hell. 

Horace hated it the moment that he laid eyes upon it and even  _ that _ was said with a good amount of cheek. Were he honest he had nearly turned away, and he supposed that a lesser man would have done just that. The girl wasn’t home, hadn’t existed, had been out. 

But he wasn’t  _ that _ lesser man. Maybe a type of one, yes, but not  _ that _ one.

Instead he let himself absorb it all, good -  _ of which there was precious little to be said except that the place didn’t exactly look like a fire hazard _ \- and bad. Sickly brown grass grew up in oddly shaped patches and strips that seemed to have chosen all the best places to die.

_ ‘Best Place to Die,’ _ being everywhere.

There were a few trees to spruce up the place but even those were nude and greyish in places that one would have expected brown bark or ochre branches. Whatever  _ had _ been growing on them was long dead, what leaves remained a dried out remnant of their former glory and while it showed that this place might liven up sometimes, now was not that time.

Possibly never. Horace lacked the will to come back and find out after this was all said and done. Someone else could do that, thank you very much.

Even the metal gate that he unlatched to pass by seemed upset by its internment here. It creaked awkwardly on its hinges, a nearly silent apology to whoever needed to pass through this place. Now as to  _ why _ there was a gate he hadn’t the foggiest. There was no fence, just two little posts made of metal and a grating in between.

Odd. But then again this whole place was odd and if he stopped to pick out  _ all _ the oddities he’d be here all day and miss his afternoon whisky.

The Mother Superior -  _ who was neither a  _ **_mother_ ** _ nor  _ **_superior_ ** _ in any sense of the words so far as he could tell _ \- positively glared as he approached the entrance, her hard eyes following every footstep with all the lean grace of a predator eying up a snack. The rest of the women who surrounded her looked more sad and lonely than anything, pitiable rather than detestable even though he found his skin crawling the longer that they remained unblinking. They were at least  _ attempting  _ to do something here for the children that they oversaw, help them and make an honest attempt to give them all a better life despite what Horace assumed to be budget cuts and a general lack of public care. They were  _ trying _ to give them a footing in life, a roof over their heads and something that might have approximated a family for someone who had never really had one before.

Well, or perhaps one would only think of it as a family if they were to squint their eyes and look off towards the sun instead of the sorry interior conditions that seemed to mirror the exterior in every way except one. At least the  _ outside  _ had fresh air. 

Horace looked as hard as he dared, the torrent of disgust sending him backwards in time to think back to his own rather tumultuous upbringing.

A minute passed.

The wistfulness faded. Yes, better that he had managed to grow up  _ there _ instead of  _ here, _ and if he were right about the little witchling that he had been tasked with introducing to the Wizarding World, the little girl would need more than a little care. Her letter had been shoddy at best and ridiculous at worst. But Albus had said to give it the benefit of the doubt, as the Registrar  _ was _ generally considered to be infallible. It  _ couldn’t _ be wrong.

_ Ms. Jane Doe, of St. Mary's Home for the Orphaned and Destitute.  _

Nothing else. It didn’t list a room, a dormitory, a bed, or even a bloody cupboard.  _ Nothing. _

“Hello!” He bid them greeting in as cheery of a voice as he could muster up, those tired-looking women now eyeing him as if they might start shoving that cross of theirs into his face without a moments notice. “I’m, uh, I’m here to see Ms. Jane Doe? Odd name that one.”

The  _ Not- _ Mother  _ Not- _ Superior nodded as if that question explained everything and snapped two spindly fingers. A woman clad in black -  _ just like all the other Sisters or Nuns or whatever it was that Muggles called them, even if  _ **_this_ ** _ one seemed somewhat different than the others who just stared at him with soulless eyes _ \- hopped off down the corridor behind them while an uncomfortable silence descended upon the rest. He was rather intrigued as to how these Muggles had gotten around the lack of House Elves, but his intrigue wasn’t enough to overcome his discomfort. The answer would just be odd anyway. Muggles were  _ weird. _ The isolation enforced upon their peoples had only increased that  _ weirdness, _ and while he wanted to know the  _ how _ and  _ why _ and  _ what- _

Well. He could satisfy this ridiculous bout of curiosity back at Madam Crowlers office. Better mood there, and she might even have some biscuits he could nab.

“Stand up straight.”

Horace turned from staring at the floor to staring at the woman who had spoken, a woman who wasn’t the one sent off to retrieve the girl but another at her side. The switch held lightly within her palm spoke volumes to this place's disciplinary measures and it was with great pain that he kept himself from cringing in disgust. That the woman was practically yellow with jaundice did nothing to settle his suddenly too-tight stomach.

What  _ did _ settle him was the bare slip of a girl who stood hiding behind the woman who had brought her in, a repeat command from Jaundice managing to drag her forward to stand and stare at him with tiny fists clenched tight in what was either fear or rage. 

_ This _ was the girl that Albus had sent him to find?

Brown hair crowned her head, shortly cropped to hide what may have been a frizzy disposition. Her eyes were just as brown as her hair but they were  _ piercing _ at everything she looked at, everything but the Sisters and even him, a pattern that she returned too once it was clear no one was speaking directly to her anymore. Scars lined her-

_ Bloody hell, _ Horace startled, catching sight of the word engraved on her tiny forearm.  _ Something _ was scrawled out onto the flesh of her arm and glaringly red, almost as if it had only recently been engraved. But it wasn’t. He  _ knew _ the aura of a curse-mark, knew it right off even if he didn’t know  _ where _ it had come from. 

Someone had engraved that thing -  _ whatever it bloody was, a series of line and whirls that might have been words if they were bigger _ \- into her body. Not these women, none of them were witches and so far as he knew -  _ and Albus as well, even though that really wasn’t saying anything _ \- these  _ were _ all orphans here. Someone had carved her up as a babe. Had they thought her to be a squib? Were they a lesser House, worried only for their own image? 

Merlin, the look she gave him when she noticed where he was staring was nothing short of frightful. Anger coloured her features as her body closed off further, chin tucked to her chest and shoulders hunched, the whole of her vibrating as if she were about to run away.

She looked scared, uptight and worried that  _ something  _ was going to happen. 

“It’s my birthday?” The girl questioned, her voice soft with age but hard, edged with something that told him she had been taken to for talking out of turn before. 

And she didn’t even know her own age? Odd, that. Or, Horace amended, perhaps not. If the girl  _ were _ an out and out orphan from the womb then it would make  _ some _ sense she wasn’t aware of her exact birthdate. Same for if she were cast away by an ashamed family. Why would they leave her with anything at all if they simply wanted to get rid of her?

But then again, why in the world had she asked that?

“What exactly led to, um,” Horace twiddled his finger, looking but not quite  _ looking _ at the  _ Not- _ Mother  _ Not- _ Superior as he did so, his face a grimacing mask of displeasure.

The old woman grimaced as she said, “Came to us like this. Now, why’d you want ta’ see about her?”

Defensive off the bat. Well, alright. He had experience dealing with that.

The wand was out of its holster and into his hand, sparking and casting before another word was said. Thin ribbons of silver erupted all around the room to steal all the memories of his arrival and the little girl who had lived here.

_ Had, _ because he could not in any sort of good conscience allow her to stay for a moment longer. No matter the circumstances of her arrival or anything else that he didn’t know, she could  _ not _ stay. Hogwarts did happen to have multiple contingencies for dealing with abusive Muggle households and orphans in need of re-homing, though in his memory he couldn’t recall anyone invoking them recently. 

And  _ screw _ Albus for making  _ him _ do this. Horace might not have been a Gryffindor but he would not settle for injustice against a minor -  _ a child! _ \- to continue unabated.

“Now then,” he started, voice chipper to move past the displeasure of the situation and the odd looks from the stupefied women. “Pleasure to meet you Ms. Jane. I’m Professor Slughorn, and I’m from-”

The girl’s evasive mood broke, her eyes looking deeply into his own and swirling with emotion, “Hogwarts?”

Horace froze up -  _ locked in place more-like, though it could be said he froze as well once that icy pit of dread appeared in his stomach _ , - dumbfounded, capable of doing nothing more than opening and closing his mouth like some poor trout caught out on dry land. There simply wasn’t enough air, not enough water. They hadn’t sent her a letter. He had been directed to come here in Albus’s stead, a favour called in to take this child and show her the blood right she had been born into.

As such the smartest response he could think of was a limp, “Beg pardon?”

\---

Hermione, no matter how smart as she was -  _ or thought she was, or assumed so, seeing as the education she had heretofore received was  _ **_filled_ ** _ with the Sisters' lack of credentials and had instead been supplemented by as many books as she could get her hands on _ , - was at a loss for words when the cacophony of Diagon crashed down upon her. It was as if she had passed on through reality and straight into one of her favourite books, or perhaps more likely descended into a dream. Those fleeting hours where someone  _ else _ was in charge of her body, driving her to speak or say or act in particular and peculiar ways to people she had never met.

But now  _ she _ was in charge of all the interaction. Or rather, all the interaction that Professor Slughorn allowed her, the older man cringing away from loud groups or individuals hawking wares that she had never seen before. Truth be told the crowd wasn’t  _ that _ bad. Certainly it couldn’t hold a candle to London when it was fit to burst, and she had been absolutely terrified the first few times she had slipped the Sisters hold. That madness had eventually become a comfort to her, a personal adventure full of anonymity where no one paid her attention unless she was caught. Lots of people all around her, lots of things to say or do or try -  _ with limited success, picking pockets had never become a strong suit and the older children who had wandered around without homes were all paired with one another, not loners looking for their next meal. She lacked that formative teaching that would have otherwise lent her a heavy purse _ \- and plenty of places to hide away when the thoughts inside her head became too much.

But then the Sisters or an Officer would find her and she would be sent back, a switch on her the moment she stepped through the door and loud voices in her ear that only added to her troubles.

So to say that Diagon was like London was wrong, and also _not._ There were throngs of people that milled and wandered about - _each and every one of them now ignoring her after Professor Slughorn had done_ **_something_** _to her that made it feel like something had coated her head to toe, a reaction to him needing to haul her away from an alley that they passed by_ \- this way or that way as they shopped. Groups were huddled around the entrances to storefronts with embossed names that glittered and shifted as she looked on, never the same from one moment to the next. Stragglers were passing her by and bumping against the Professor as they moved from one section to the next in a hurry for who knew what. All of them seemed to be talking or shouting, most of them in a collection of accents that she had never once heard before. 

There was precious little magic that she could see, or at least there was only a minimum display of it. There were  _ creatures _ and  _ things _ inside of the shops, little toys that floated or spun without any air, bubbling cauldrons and broomsticks -  _ which immediately upon seeing had given her such a sudden feeling of vertigo that she had needed to stop and hold onto her knees in a fright that passed just as quickly as it came _ \- that levitated around shops. There were  _ some _ who were indulging in magic, little light shows or swishing a magic wand that looked far more like some fanciful tool than anything she had ever read about in a book before. 

They were -  _ all of them, each and every single one of them _ \- weird. But  _ she _ was weird too.

Slughorn was as well, and her opinion of the man had devolved to the belief that  _ he _ was weird when compared to all the other  _ weird _ here. But at least he was nice.

He was nice even when she was frightened -  _ and intrigued, if she were honest, watching  _ **_something_ ** _ happen that painfully reminded her of a memory she could not touch _ \- at his actions at the Orphanage, all the Sisters suddenly going slack faced and mumbling to themselves while he sat about dealing with her. He had asked her then if she had ever experienced anything odd -  _ and of course she had, odd things had always been happening in her dreams and when she was old enough to form the words she had attempted to repeat them as much as she could with her finger or a random twig her chosen implement to copy the actions of those phantom figures she half-remembered upon awakening, and even while that didn’t always work, it sometimes  _ **_did,_ ** _ and sometimes it worked so well that the other children would be scared of her _ \- and she had answered truthfully, or as truthfully as she could.

She had kept quiet about the dreams when he asked if there was anything else she could tell him, mouth snapping shut and posture turning cold. Some angry and distant portion of her mind had said  _ ‘No’ _ to the thought of revealing anything further to this man, a stranger that she didn’t even know. It echoed around her head as a feeling more than words and brought with it the recent memory of interrupting his initial speech. She didn’t know  _ why _ she had suddenly interrupted him like that but it had felt so  _ odd _ to hear him talking that she had felt nothing other than a desire to say it. 

_ Hogwarts. _

It was like its own special word, magic all to itself. 

A magic word that had set his face to quivering in confusion, a look that had her clamming up and saying she had heard it in a dream -  _ which wasn’t exactly a lie so much as it was a half-truth _ \- and nowhere else, certainly nowhere that wouldn’t make sense with whatever  _ he _ had been thinking before she interrupted him.

But they moved past it. Soon his questions turned and Hermione took the moment to thank whatever was wrong with her for having at least prepared her somewhat for the startling revelation that she was a Witch. It certainly  _ felt _ nice to finally have a label to put to the ridiculousness that had followed her around, and the pain which had been doled out -  _ almost always unintended on her end, almost always stirred up by others being mean or wrong or nasty _ \- felt worth it for the moment.

Hermione  _ liked _ being odd, even if Professor Slughorn kept insisting her name was  _ Jane _ even when she knew it was Hermione -  _ even if she couldn’t prove it, _ \- even if this was all so sudden and yet felt like it had taken far too long.

She  _ liked _ being odd. It felt like being  _ special. _

\---

As they wandered back and forth, up and down, in and out of Diagon Alley, Horace congratulated himself once more on having packed away more than a few extra potions to deal with this insane comeuppance of a hangover. If anything it seemed determined to make this day -  _ which had already gone from bad to worse to  _ **_ridiculous_ ** \- harder to deal with than it should have been, and it seemed well and truly determined to head on into pure shite in a way that not many days in his past had ever accomplished.  _ Pulse- _ **_Pulse_ ** _ -Pulse _ went the throbbing pain as he weaved once more through a crowd of ridiculously well-dressed tourists, off past window-shoppers with tykes at their heels and cacophony hooting and hollering that seemed to echo before condensing upon his ears.

At least when they were all at Hogwarts they had the damned courtesy to remain quiet and in line.

But he would put up with it, he supposed. Not that he  _ had _ any real choice in the matter -  _ or torture, better to call it torture surely, as it could equally qualify as that. Did the Ministry even have a provision against a treatment like this? _ \- since he had apparently decided he was as much of a bleeding heart as Albus. And it was all that damned orphanage’s fault. Plucking the girl up from that wretched Morgana-damned hellhole had taken no time at all once he had managed to pick his jaw up off the floor -  _ she had no belongings to speak of, no keepsakes except a raggedy old book he hadn’t even bothered asking the name of _ \- and while he had had aspirations of getting her to some much-needed help they hadn’t included  _ him. _

But then somehow he had ended up in Diagon with her and the morning had felt far too rushed to have actually have happened, and bugger it all none of this mattered in the slightest. At least this way he could go and get something to eat and drink that  _ wasn’t _ on a repeating menu that never really seemed to change despite the many,  _ many _ years he had spent eating it.

If there was one thing Diagon and Aberforth had in common it was the delightful proclivity for shocking his tastebuds. In Diagon’s case it was with  _ new _ and  _ interesting _ foods, and in Aberforth’s it was by seeing just how close he could get his clientele to death before they buggered off. The result was the same, even if his slowly expanding waistline would beg to differ.

But that was all off point. Where was he? 

Ah. Here, where he didn’t want to be.

Well, might as well get it all over with since he had so graciously volunteered himself to see it through. Besides, if he pulled it off without a hitch then he might end up shoving Albus down a peg or two, and maybe make Dippet squirm while he was at it. Not that he specifically had anything against the two men, they  _ were _ outstanding Professors and incredible Wizards both, but sometimes sit just felt  _ good _ to get underneath someone else’s skin and let them know they weren’t the only people with a serviceable brain.

With that in his head and mead on his mind, Horace waltzed from store to store and let his thoughts drift to other topics, namely the wonder of the girl -  _ who he had already made up his mind as being one of those very, very few who were born with the gift of Sight _ \- and the wonder of just  _ why _ First Year classes were so full up on annoying little needs that never had made sense to him. 

School supplies and all the other essentials weren’t technically needed right here and now, and if he were following protocol to the letter then he would have simply passed the girl off to be brought around with another group of Muggleborn children. But he wasn’t following protocol and didn’t rightly care at this point since it -  _ again _ \- made him look better than Albus -  _ and by extension Dippet, which might very well go a long way towards softening up old Nigellus _ \- and by extension allowed him a rather long period of time where he wasn’t being haggled by other staff members and could think about nothing much in particular.

Which -  _ of course _ \- led him back to thinking about peculiar things, which in turn led to a not-insignificant amount of scheming.

_ If this was a child that had been abandoned after birth as a squib, then surely her parents would want her back now that it was proven she wasn’t, no?  _ **_And_ ** _ if her parents  _ **_did_ ** _ want their child back, they might be willing to give him a little something in return, right? Just for finding her of course, he wouldn’t do anything untoward about the situation, no, not at all. And if she  _ **_did_ ** _ have the Sight? Well, what then? _

Horace stopped for a moment, looked at the thin piece of parchment with the required list for First Years and then off in the distance at the marble columns of Gringotts.

He turned his heel and then they were off.

\---

Something felt monumentally _wrong_ about this trip. Something hidden and peculiar in the way that it managed to crash back against her thoughts in a way that made her thoughts all turn _un_ real and then back again to _real_ before she had a chance to really think about the _un_ reality of it all. That wasn’t to say that she was sure this feeling really meant anything at all, even the _un_ real portions of it. This was _all_ _un_ real. _Magic_ was _un_ real, except that she had already known she could do magic.

This whole situation was a trip that meant nothing and everything all at once, and the odd  _ un _ real portions were filling her up with some strange sense of longing that  _ hurt _ the more that she focused on it. But she didn’t know  _ why _ it hurt, and that made her want to run away and find some nice and quiet little space where she could read, and then tear apart or destroy so absolutely thoroughly that no one would ever again recognize it for what it had been. 

Unfortunately it appeared that Professor Slughorn wouldn’t be allowing her that measure of privacy and so she instead arrived at the decision to dutifully follow along to wherever he led her. Store after store passed them both by, a small but floating trunk keeping level with the ground and growing fuller with every stop. Each moment they had walked outside she had thought it to be their last but the old man had been proving her wrong at each occurrence. It wasn’t until they met up with the Goblins -  _ Goblins, of all things! Creatures that she had been sure were merely frightening images in her head dreams, just dancing little dolls that would wander around before shouting and shoving her into locked rooms, her own body falling away and growing up into one that she knew wasn’t her own _ \- that she accepted that whatever  _ un _ real feelings she had been experiencing,  _ this _ was real,  _ this _ was happening and would continue to happen at Professor Slughorn’s pace and not hers.

In acceptance of that fact she focused on keeping up with his long stride and listening as he mumbled beneath his breath at everyone they passed. She kept her eyes peeled for whatever new thing could assail her next, Goblins being her biggest focus until that business came to an end. A quick prick on her finger, a shiny key presented to her that opened nothing more than an empty vault that appeared smaller than the room she had left behind at the orphanage, and then nothing more. 

With the same speed as their prior movements they were off and on to bigger and better things, she hoped.

\---

Albus -  _ usually composed and kind and grandfatherly despite his relatively still young age _ \- was positively glaring.

It was a very particular kind of glare, the type that had seen ample use in a classroom setting to instil discipline to those who withered beneath it -  _ despite Horace’s rather open opinion that  _ **_none_ ** _ of Albus’s classes ever had any discipline _ , - and now it was being used over faculty disputes. Perfect, just bloody perfect. Horace wouldn’t say he was intimated by the look, especially seeing as he was perfectly in the right with this little situation. He had done everything by the book and done just what it said to do and no more. No matter what happened next  _ he _ had been in the right with this decision regardless of Albus’s objections to the issue. Objections that were quite quickly coming to grate on Horace’s nerves.

“-and furthermore it was as irresponsible a decision as you could have made, no matter the situation that you found you should have immediately contacted at least  _ one _ of us before dealing with those Muggles!” Albus finished his frightfully long-winded speech with a twisting look all knotted up in that pleading, fiery anger he was so well versed in when the situation called for it. Dippet meanwhile looked on at the both of them as if they had merely brought up a disagreement over the use of Mandrake cuttings in wart-curing potions.

Horace waited for a moment more to see whether or not Dippet would even interject before launching off into his own spiel with just as much fervour as their Transfiguration Head, “Well as I’ve already explained I didn’t exactly have the time to do that Albus. You’ve been made well aware of the timeline of events, there wasn’t another way to handle it. You were off in France, McGonagall was otherwise preoccupied with her Mastery students, and our dear Headmaster was busy with the Minister. Now, if you really insist I’ll give you a memory for the Pensieve but the fact remains that she was  _ not _ in a safe environment. Now, if you had been the one to deal with her from the beginning you could have done whatever you’d have liked but you  _ weren’t _ and I  _ was. _ And I’m still confident that if you had been there then you would have made the same decision.”

Oh, and didn’t that line of thinking just turn old Albus right upside down. The man’s face was covered in a beard of salt and pepper that more erupted than grew, and what little Horace could see of the cheeks beneath the shrubbery was suddenly turning beet red. His fists were clenched at his side and his eyes continued to swivel around in search of help that Horace knew -  _ more hoped, but stating what he wanted was a way to success, right? _ \- would not come. No one was in his corner with this, and no matter how much the Old Goat was hung up over the decision he knew it would stand. Horace was  _ sure _ that it had been the right decision then and he hadn’t changed his mind at any moment since. They had multiple contingencies in place to specifically deal with these sorts of things, and for Merlin’s sake it wouldn’t hurt to be proactive instead of reactive.

And if Horace managed to satisfy his own curiosity at the same time then what matter was that besides his own?

“You still should have taken the time to consult with  _ someone,” _ Albus groused, his finger pointed so sternly in Horace’s direction that he was afraid -  _ for a moment, no more _ \- that it might come flying off and spear him through the chest. “You could have at least sent me an owl, or a Floo call.”

Horace squinted at him, “And what would you have done then, hmm? Told me to wait? Or would you just have had me wipe all of their minds and do it all again? Would you  _ really _ want me to leave a defenceless little girl in the care of those Muggle cretins?”

“She could have been dangerous,” Albus retorted almost immediately, his eyes bugging outwards from their pale sockets and beard suddenly wobbling with his movement. “You could have-”

_ “Enough!” _

Horace bit back the tongue lashing he had been prepared to unleash -  _ a rather strong one at that, as he was fully set to bring up the odd issues that Albus had with Grindelwald, and their duel, and perhaps he would even mention that the Old Goat shouldn’t be hemming and hawing over Horace’s mistakes when all his own were to artfully ignored _ \- and straightened where he stood. It wasn’t very often that Old Man Dippet would raise his voice, and it was a rarer moment still when it was filled with a ripe vein of anger. This moment spoke to  _ danger, _ and Horace immediately defaulted to the rather stereotypical plan of saving his own neck above all else.

Dippet set aside his reading spectacles to rub resignedly at the bridge of his nose, “Albus, is this about Riddle again?”


	2. The Spiral

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild editing because I can't keep staring at this.

The world turned. Slow on the outside and taking as circuitous a route as it could, but it did. It would do so for as long as it could, Hermione assumed, up until everything froze still and nothing was left to run. She couldn’t influence it and so she chose not to worry over it, no matter how it seemed to speed and slow to a rhythm of its own design. 

The strangeness of this new world wasn’t something that she could ignore, however, and with every passing second it seemed to grow stranger still. 

The initial amount of freedom she had been experiencing under the -  _ admittedly lacking _ \- care of Professor Slughorn had ended the moment she had arrived at the bridge that lead up to the Castle. She stood there by his side and for a moment or two experienced a sense of vertigo, or perhaps something that could be better described as a feeling of looking back on herself while upside down. It flashed -  _ haunting and grey and bright and sunny and filled with empty people _ \- before disappearing just as quickly as it came, a haunting reminder of little things that had occurred when she was younger. Those flashes had come hard and fast before petering out into nothing that extended over the years. The dreams were still there but that unsettling feeling of deja vu had lessened to the point of what she had thought of as -  _ incorrectly _ \- extinction.

Until now.

Now she was striding across massive stone blocks and an expanse beneath her that seemed to open up to the bottom of the world, a sharp tug upon her shoulder hauling her back to the centre of the bridge lest she fall and land below.  _ That _ would have been an unacceptable end. She might have been young but she had no aspirations of falling to her death, that just wouldn’t do, there were many different ways to go and the Sisters had been dutiful -  _ one might say to the point of mania _ \- to inform them on the multitude of ways they might leave this earth and how they would be sorry to have not lived up to the orphanage’s namesake if any of those ingenious -  _ and sometimes horrifying _ \- demises occurred. 

But that brief -  _ and distant _ \- brush with death was in the back of her mind. What was at the forefront was a sudden longing that overcame her with the crushing power of a wave, despite her ironclad knowledge that she had never once been near a beach. It fell upon her in a rhythmic pulse that crushed her from the front to back, rolling as something like bile spilled into the back of her throat. She bit it back and steadied her footing when the Professor looked down upon her with a cocked brow and a rather putrid grin. She would not show her weakness here, no matter that she could not identify exactly  _ what _ this weakness was.

It was sour, she wanted sweet. But weakness never really let her choose and so it was that she was left to do nothing but follow along with the instructions that she had been given. Not that she  _ wanted _ to. She  _ wanted _ to wander the dungeons and run across the verdant grounds, she wanted to sit down by the lake and smell how  _ fresh _ the world here was. But she wasn’t -  _ because she was a good girl who listened to her elders and did what she was told and pointedly did  _ **_not_ ** _ ignore her betters despite very much wanting to _ \- and she wouldn’t. 

Her freedom of movement had been restricted for so long during her time at the orphanage that suddenly finding herself with the ample opportunity to explore the base floors to the massive Castle that was to become her home was nearly overwhelming. Her passage would remain unrestricted so long as she kept away from the dungeons and any areas particularly labelled as  _ Off-Limits, _ most of those supposedly being closed due to the inhabitants behind the doors being Professor’s or perhaps a classroom that had been closed off during the summertime, or maybe even a storeroom that was more dangerous than interesting.

Which would have been perfectly fine -  _ the lack of supervision was certainly helpful in that regard, she had no one watching her or telling her what to do or where to go or what to read or any of the other ridiculous things that the Sisters had always been telling her to do _ \- except that she couldn’t tell where anything was. Whether they all believed her to be so small and very new to this world that she couldn’t cause any real disruption or get herself into any sort of real trouble -  _ which she was fairly certain was inaccurate, especially seeing as one of the older Professors had given her a side-eye that would have had the Sisters crowing in jealousy _ \- or they had some sort of protection set in place to keep her safe whenever she decided to step out of line.

If it was the second option then she wanted to know about it as soon as possible. Witches and Wizards and all the little minutiae were creating a set of problems that she couldn’t exactly determine how to deal with. Knowing something about this world, this Castle, it could  _ help _ her. But she couldn’t know anything if they didn’t tell her and they seemed to have all decided that she was better off alone in a dingy little room with nothing to do except stare at her wand -  _ 12 and ¾’’s long, walnut so dark it might have been charred and bent forward at the tip until it constantly looked under tension, the core of it filled with Dragon Heartstring (which she wasn’t sure was an actual raw material until the old man had stared her down and said, for the last time, that yes, it was) and burning up her fingertips when she held onto it for the first time with a wave of power that had flooded heat and magma into every single speck of her soul, so hot and acidic that she  _ **_burned_ ** _ with anger at first before mellowing towards something that seemed just a tad lighter _ \- that she had been strictly warned against using until tomorrow when a kindly older Professor -  _ a Muggelborn as stated by Professor Slughorn, his voice tinged with just the littlest bit of cold derision _ \- had time to go over the basics with her. 

So bugger that. The first order of business -  _ outside of memorizing the layout of as much of the Castle as she could reach _ \- was finding the library.

\---

The library was more of a bother than it was worth. It was a chore. It was annoying. It could sod off and never come back from a long extended trip to the other side of the world. It could catch alight and burn all the way to the ground, and Hermione wouldn’t even care. Hermione wished it would -  _ and for a moment wished the inhabitants would too _ \- and in her sudden bout of rage, she cried. Cramped in that tiny room with no one to see her or interject or leer and call her names, she cried. Screamed with all the force that her young lungs could muster up. Bashed her hands against the -  _ admittedly very soft _ \- mattress in an attempt to keep herself from attacking anything substantial enough to actually hurt her. She had learned that lesson years ago when a sudden  _ something _ caught fire in her brain and made her aware that the world was a horrid place that would never let her understand just why it was the way that it was. Young fists against a harsh door and stone countertop were more than enough to leave bruises that left her fingers burning and blood pumping. 

Pillows and mattress and sheets would need to do for now.

All of this distress because the library was  _ Hell. _ So too was the librarian. So too were the stools. And the carpeting. And the thin spaces she had needed to wander past and the hardwood flooring that seemed to be made from stone more than wood. The untenable filing system -  _ even London had better (if poorly funded) public libraries that seemed content with their own rather understandable filing system _ \- had vexed her from the get-go. Who decided to arrange things by height, then the author’s first name, then subject?  _ Why?! _ Being forced to seek out the help of the librarian within the first five minutes wasn’t how Hermione had anticipated this little jaunt around the Castle to go.

It should have been an easy task, even if she wasn’t allowed to use magic. She had been  _ sure _ it would be an easy task. Find the librarian. Ask the librarian. 

_ So where in the world was this wondrous librarian, the single person who could open up the whole of this mysterious world to her?  _ **_Where?!_ **

The sign atop her long bench clearly stated she was supposed to have returned over an hour ago and yelling at the top of her lungs had yielded no one at all. And Hermione knew the woman was here -  _ no one left open glasses of liquid around untended books for too long, she was sure of it _ \- even if her pacing all about the place had led her to no one in particular. The woman was just nowhere. Nowhere that she could find her and even when she strode from that place and asked the first adult she could find -  _ a rather flabby man a rather taller man at his side (with such a bushy scrounge of hair around his face that Hermione had thought him to have been a bush more than human despite his lanky appearance) and a scowl upon his face that seemed too etched in to be anything other than his normal disposition _ \- she had just been sent back and pointed off towards the library again, as if that was going to help her in the slightest.

Then the pair had gone on their way because apparently that was how things were run in this madhouse of a place; ignore all the new students and ignore the honest questions in favour of dour looks and annoying platitudes. She took their bloody advice and headed back into the library with a scowl of her own plastered across her face and wandered as much as she could before everything that was different became far too similar to itself. She had no positive way to fix this situation. No one was around, all the shelves looked the same, and the maze of aisles continued on in multiple directions and down twisting pathways that Hermione very much preferred to avoid.

Those rows upon rows of books couldn’t be touched, couldn’t be pulled down, couldn’t do anything but sit there upon their shelves and taunt her hungering mind. They did nothing and even worse  _ she _ could do nothing. Nothing was happening. Until nothing wasn’t. Nothing snapped back to  _ something. _ She was tall, tall enough to reach out and pull a tome off of a shelf before gingerly placing it within a bag she couldn’t recognize. She removed enchantments, talked to the people beside and behind her. Lost the books. Lost the light. Saw cracks in the wall and heard screams, she wasn’t reading she was  _ crying and it  _ **_hurt,_ ** _ it  _ **_hurt_ ** _ to think or look and  _ **_hear-_ **

She had snapped back into a body that positively burned. A double of her vision had been presented to her for torturous minutes that seemed not to end and some harshly buzzing energy made her whole body burn with pain. She had screamed then -  _ as much as any child would have, as much as  _ **_anyone_ ** _ would have when presented with something so startlingly real and painful that it made no sense except to feel  _ **_right_ ** \- and dug her bitten nails down into the soft flesh of her palms, muscles tensed and eyes screwed shut so tightly she could see colours that had never existed before. She rode that pain in an effort to expel the foreign hurt and soon enough the lights inside her mind were dimmed to a more manageable level.

A startled voice found her, admonishing and whip-sharp with all the barbs of the Sisters. Hermione ran past them, past a woman with black hair and a black cloak and a black glare to her eyes that said no one was allowed to be  _ loud _ in a library no matter the reason.

That had been before. Now all that was left was the afterimage of pain and rage and tired muscles that let her sink down against the mattress to cry.

\---

There were few things that Cygnus Black would admonish his children over. He was as doting of a father as he could be -  _ given the rather precarious stance of their family now that Orion had taken his position as Head and Arcturus was only there in name _ \- and what time he did have was given over to his daughters. But he could be stern as well and Bellatrix knew that he wouldn’t approve of where -  _ and thus  _ **_what_ ** \- she was currently doing. Hiding in a grove of trees while tears leaked down her face was what he would label as  _ ‘Beneath their class and standing.’ _

But Cygnus was nowhere in sight and wouldn’t be around for who knew how long. He could go shag a Hippogriff for all Bellatrix cared. Maybe a self-administered  _ Crucio _ could be in the cards as well.

Or more, if she had her way. Something so low grade as simple torture would be too kind for the one man that Bellatrix -  _ at this moment _ \- hated more than anyone else in the world. 

And yet she didn’t hate him at all.

At the same time she hated him more -  _ or perhaps less, depending on whether she let herself sink down and focus on this and only this transgression, or perhaps whether or not she was currently wishing that she were elsewhere or  _ **_somewhere_ ** _ or  _ **_anywhere_ ** _ other than this shitty estate in this shitty countryside _ \- than words could properly express and still she could not help but understand his reasoning. She was smart -  _ or thought herself to be; certainly all of her tutors had said she was and Druella was nothing if not honest _ \- and had done her absolute level best to wrap her brain around the  _ why _ of the situation. She was aware of what was expected of her, of a daughter, of the firstborn to a lesser branch.

She read what she could. She listened to her supposed betters. She snuck around outside of rooms and alongside the hall that flanked her father’s study while he invited over members of the Wizengamot and esteemed high society for drinks or talk of politics. She kept her eyes on the elves and the angry mutterings of her increasingly distant mother.

She could understand it. The reasoning, that was. She couldn’t understand the broader  _ ‘Why,’ _ of the situation. She supposed that the full understanding would eventually be something she had a hold of -  _ so long as she ended up making it to that point in life; Dragon Pox  _ **_was_ ** _ beginning to make a comeback amongst her fellow countrymen and she had always been accused of having a weak disposition when it came to maladies magical in origin or mundane _ \- and that she would eventually come to accept.

But right now she couldn’t.

Wouldn’t.

Absolutely didn’t want to, refused to address it or think on it or acknowledge that it was even happening. 

She had been  _ bought. _

She had been traded to someone like some common piece of jewellery, a contract for her lot in life handed over along with all her supposed freedom.

She understood it.

Family was more important than her feelings or desires.  _ Toujours Pur. _ This was to be her lot in life despite whatever reservations she had on the subject. This was her burden for the crime of having been born contrary to what her father had desired. And there was nothing she could do except ruminate on these facts as she climbed ever higher into the twisting gnarls of an oak tree. The anger set in with claws that dug in harshly against her heart, a nauseating roll of her stomach left her clutching onto an awkwardly placed tree limb and fighting back against tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks.

Her mother had always said that she could choose. Druella had explained -  _ in her most motherly tone and with a seriousness to her eyes that had left Bellatrix shaking when all was said and done _ \- that she had never had a choice in the matter. There had never been a chance of hope for her in life but there  _ would _ be a chance for Bellatrix. 

There was supposed to be a choice.

Bellatrix pulled back and smashed her fist against the tree, succumbed to the feeling of bark and loose splinters crash back against her knuckles as she forced that bitter anger from heart to fist. She hated this situation -  _ hated it and hated that the understanding made it worse, made her stomach flip over itself and set her spine into a wracking shiver that was cold, her flesh a pale and clammy state despite the warmth of the summer air around her _ \- and made her vow right then and there.

She would escape this. If she could not escape this then she would alter it. If she could not alter it she would dominate it. She would -  _ under no circumstances _ \- allow herself to be subjugated beneath some random swine that her father believed would be the best political match. 

The magic that surrounded the estate -  _ an old and willful thing that was packed through with inventiveness and malice that had managed to follow the Black family from their humble beginnings in faraway lands and suffuse them all with its own form of attention _ \- crackled in response to a vow made in anger. It noticed Bellatrix, even if the young girl hadn’t noticed it in turn. She was too caught up within her moment of defiance. It passed, she remained angered.

She would win this, and the magic pumping through her blood and body had acknowledged that desire.

\---

Albus strode out past the double-doors and away from Dippet’s office in as much of a huff as he could reasonably muster -  _ which wasn’t very much now that arthritis had begun to set in along his joints with a pace and strength that even a potion created by Horace himself couldn’t fully dim or stop _ \- and headed down the winding staircase with a scowl pulling at his lips and cheeks rosied by the rush of blood that had led to his rather abrupt dismissal from the meeting. The passageway opened up for him and before he passed that threshold that led back towards the regular world of Hogwarts he turned around towards the large and rather imposing Gargoyle that guarded it. He looked, tilted his head, and then gave it an affectionate pat upon the head.

If there was one this in this entire Castle that Albus felt could be impartial towards all things, it was the Gargoyle. The weird and semi-living being was an outward extension of Hogwarts itself, and therefore it was really the only direct way that Albus felt her could express his appreciation for the school being just what it was.

A school. A place of higher learning. A shelter for the lost, a shepherd of their knowledge. A school that was  _ not _ a factory for budding Dark Lords -  _ which, rather begrudgingly and with a bitter taste in his mouth, Albus admitted had almost included  _ **_him_ ** _ once upon a time _ \- and Ladies. The fact that the school  _ could _ double as an institution of higher learning  _ and _ a factory for those Dark and unsavoury witches or wizards who felt the call to Chaos more than the light meant nothing more than praise for the institution. There was so much knowledge and power stored here, so many impressive teachers and methods of learning, that someone could accrue all the information and experience that they needed to either excel at life or darkness.  _ He _ certainly would never have been able to reach the lofty heights of his position and ranking without its help, a Ministry funded school -  _ such as the rather drab and sodden Drudges Secondary School for Witchcraft and Wizardry (informally known as Drudgery of the Highest Order). That all the state-sponsored institutions were mainly home-schooled children and young adults yearning for a classroom setting at specific points in their academic lives was beyond the point, that  _ **_point_ ** _ being that they were lacking at best and poor at their worst, almost to the point that no one even attended them now that Hogwarts had opened itself up to distance learning and owl-order placement tests _ \- would never have been enough to satisfy his needs.

This, Albus knew, spoke to Hogwarts being quite a fine establishment and he could do no more than nod his acceptance of this face while at the same moment sagely pulling at his -  _ rather short _ \- beard. The matter at hand was worth more of his attention than this bout of reminiscence.

The girl that Horace had brought back  _ was _ like Tom, regardless of Dippet’s propensity for affection towards lost and wayward things or Horace’s bland acceptance at being able to potentially secure himself a prize of his own design. Albus pondered further while his footsteps echoed down the hallways and corridors, nowhere directly in mind except a mind filled up with thoughts on how best to manage this new situation. The girl hadn’t seemed to be anywhere near as directly malevolent as Tom had once been. But her mind was clouded, so that opinion was rather moot.

He couldn’t see into her -  _ and no matter what the bloody Ministry decided, no one had given up the practice of using Legillimency on children, especially seeing as all the Pure-Blood houses knew they would lose one of their most secure routes for second-hand information, and if they did then none of their own children would have a need for Occlumency. Besides, it was simply due diligence that he checked her out before trying to think of a solution to this vexing problem _ \- mind with any degree of clarity and repeated efforts had revealed that it wasn’t some act of  _ Occlumency _ that precluded his lack of progress. Or, if it was in fact  _ Occlumency, _ then it was some sort of self-crafted version that had been learned without any input from a master in the technique. There was no common framing to her mind, no structure that he could notice and pick up on before tearing into shreds. He  _ could _ catch onto the general emotions but not the memories that filled her up. Whatever was within her mind was so hidden underneath a cacophony of twisted and gnarled armour that he had given up on the exercise rather than continue until he made a breakthrough.

Albus knew that even as the professed savour of the Wizarding World even _he_ would catch flak from the Ministry if the ever found out that he was checking into the newest pupils minds when they first arrived. Most of the children didn’t notice his handiwork at all, and if some did then those who knew how to stop him would put barriers up immediately - _or, if they were Muggleborn,_ _they would let him wander out of curiosity towards the odd feeling of someone literally picking apart their mind (not that he ever really needed to do so, most of them were well enough adjusted that he could slip from them with no fear of being wrong)_ \- and thinking on that subject - _along with little random asides that he really should consider the consequences should someone blab about what he was doing_ \- he made his way down the castle. His mind was a haze of thought and theory that mixed in well with the ever-present acidity of his propensity for worrying. This was how, sometime later, he came across the hallway that led to the Castle’s newest charge.

He would have wandered on aimlessly and forgotten about her for the evening if not for a sound that managed to make its way past her door. Albus knew that the room she had been given was a small thing, used only for visitors and those few children who could not remain within a House or home. The adjoining offices to classrooms were all larger than her space and in effect that small footprint made sure that any loud noises from the interior could be heard outside.

Albus leaned in to press his ear gently against the wood of the door and strained to listen as the sound of a child in the midst of a crying spell picked up, ebbing and flowing as she struggled to find her breath. She wasn’t overly loud or bawling so much as to make him burst through to find out what had happened but it  _ did _ manage to stop all the motion that had been speeding him through the Castle.

_ ‘I’m  _ **_not_ ** _ Jane,’ _ the voice spoke up, tone soft and yet still harsh enough that he could guess it was spoken more from pain than anything else. He stood there and listened to it be uttered again and again, wondering just what she meant by that. The quick peak that he had into her mind had been far too chaotic to reveal anything of substance and all he could do now was wonder at the steel behind her words. The crying at least seemed to be coming to an end, replaced with her voice and those repeating three words.

When Jane finally left her room to wander down towards the hall that Albus knew led off to the library, he stopped. Stared. Watched her slowly retreating form from the cover of a bend in the hallway with eyes that were narrowed in suspicion -  _ and a small amount of worry over her previous distress _ \- and then approached the now empty room. A flick of his wrist opened it up immediately and he stood there for a moment before entering fully. 

It was in disarray -  _ but not broken _ \- with clothes thrown about and her trunk open to the world, a wand upon the bedding and a clearly wet pillow at the head of the mattress with clear evidence that she had been crying still drying upon the fabric. His heart -  _ rather weary and old and cold though it was _ \- pained him as he stood there. Whatever had set her off was deep-seated, and while the room wasn’t destroyed it was still an angry mess of a tantrum. 

At least it wasn’t so angry of a mess as Tom’s little room had been.

Slow steps moved him towards the bed whereupon he picked up the discarded wand and spun it between his fingers. Dragon heartstring, walnut, a clear bend to it but otherwise firm and unyielding. Albus set it back down when it revealed nothing further and wondered just  _ who _ little Jane really was.


	3. One Step Forward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild-Edit  
> Sat on this too long.

“Well, out with it then Horace. Is she a Pureblood or not?”

Horace -  _ tired and tipsy, suffering from the faintest burn of acid reflux that hadn’t yet begun to abate despite the multiple potions he had taken and despite their prior efficacy at knocking it back within seconds -  _ leaned backwards in his chair before rubbing with as much visible weariness at his temples as he could muster. What he had expected to be a friendly after-dinner chat had devolved into something much closer to an interrogation now that the prior interest -  _ Ogg and the perennially mad Herbert _ \- had left to go corral whatever it was they tended to outside of normal business hours. Possibly Thestrals and the Willow, though Horace was disinclined to find out. Though that might have been a better task to set himself to now that he had become the centre of attention.

The smile on his face felt stretched and taut.

“Well…”

Even here, in a location as secure as the Headmaster’s own office, he lacked privacy. There were chinks in the Castle’s armour -  _ predicated almost entirely by all the portraits lining the rooms and hallways and in this instance he was quite certain it was that cad Mordicus that had gossiped and let the information out _ \- that led to all the other staff knowing most -  _ if not all _ \- things of import within a minimum of twenty-four hours. If they managed to miss it though all they needed to do was wait until they were safely back inside their personal quarters and speak with the portraits they kept for themselves -  _ most of which were there purely for that reason alone, even if no one admitted it _ \- before sitting on the knowledge until it had gestated to reach a maximum use-case. The right time to unleash it was up to every individual but it seemed his meeting earlier in the day had become common knowledge almost immediately and been given the decision to be unleashed as soon as possible.

And by unleashed he meant to  _ ask _ , as was the case in this instance.  _ And _ it was asked with all the false sweetness that Minerva could muster up, a deliberate ploy to tug him into revealing all. He had to give it to her, it  _ was _ quite effective, especially in her honeyed and too sweet accent -  _ that he knew was false, she was as uncouth as a sailor and harder to understand on most days than someone speaking around a mouthful of chocolate frogs _ \- and punctuated by a serene -  _ if, again, false _ \- smile.

“Oh come on Horace, out with it already!” Pomona prodded him with her hand, voice a grousing melange of alcohol and interest, her eyes half-lidded and body wavering in her seat. Horace could only smile at her antics -  _ Pomona was more than alright in his eyes, Herbology  _ **_was_ ** _ an integral portion of making potions after all, and though she wasn’t head of the department she could be said to know more (and have done more) than old Herbert, so much so that he knew her disciplined education had bled far enough into potion making that she could even hold his position should the need arise _ \- and steel himself to spill everything he knew. Or  _ almost _ everything. He would hold some back, it wouldn’t do for him to go soft over a lovely pair of eyes. But tonight was different and some measure of disclosure was warranted.  _ He _ was different, even if only because his conscience had decided to rear its head from beneath whatever cave it had been living in for the past who knew how long. So the action he took was to simply hold his glass beneath his nose, smell the lovely tinge of heat, and then down it all in one shot that let him savour the burn along his throat.

“No. Or, if she is, she’s not from any of the local families. Or rather, a family that managed to register themselves with Gringotts. Which is a suspicious circumstance on its own but I believe the far more likely truth is she’s a half-blood to a family from the continent, or perhaps America. They have far more lax affairs over there, so if she was born somewhere else and then shipped off over here it would make sense she’d have no history for Gringotts to pull upon.”

The table absorbed his words between a round of sips from their own crystalline glasses filled with a -  _ watered-down _ \- vintage that he had selected from his personal coffers. For sure there were far better bottles that he could have chosen from, all of them undiluted and prepped for a good occasion. Tonight wasn’t that night however. Those were all meant to be consumed at celebrations, births, or after a particularly revealing branch of research was proven out.

That wasn’t tonight. Tonight he simply wished to get blitzed off his arse with friends that wouldn’t judge him harshly for going against Albus. Minnie fell into the label of a  _ ‘Friend’ _ about half of the time -  _ such as whenever she wasn’t trying to impress Albus with her willingness to lick boots, and instead decided it was best to let loose and  _ **_relax_ ** _ for once in her life _ \- and Pomona nearly always fell into the label, she was always ready for a round of drinks and chatter that -  _ more likely than not _ \- would delve into gossip and topics better suited for the rags printed on the back of the  _ Daily Prophet. _

Hufflepuff she may have been but Horace detected more than a little streak of Slytherin whenever drink was in her. 

“So,” Horace began again in a voice thick from alcohol and choking as he pushed through the minor irritation. “Whatever her origins may have been she was gravely mistreated at some point in her past. Albus will have to take a look at that curse on her arm. I can’t imagine that it feels good to have whatever it is digging into her flesh, to say nothing of if it's Soul Magic. But he’s being an-”

Horace’s voice came to a halt as the door to his quarters pushed inwards, unannounced and grabbing hold of everyone’s attention. His face was confused -  _ doors didn’t open on their own, not with the charms and spells he had laid across his quarters, and no one else had been invited to this little soirée _ \- as Albus stepped past the opened threshold with a hand atop his beard and a thin smile upon his lips. The blue eyes so often known to be enchanting -  _ and to Horace rather infuriating in their effort to disarm and allay suspicions _ \- were practically twinkling beneath bushy brows that Horace found to be far too similar to a pair of rapturous caterpillars. 

But there was nothing to be done except stare and wait for someone -  _ not him _ \- to say something -  _ nothing Horace could think of _ \- and move the interrupted conversation along.

“Ah, Albus!” Minnie slipped out, her tone and utterance so perfectly tuned to Albus’s ears that Horace felt a shiver of schoolyard disgust worm it’s way down his spine. Minnie recovered fully after that, a thin but cordial smile upon her face as she scooted Pomona over and summoned up a chair much like the ones already in attendance, filling a glass with Horace’s watered liquor at the same time.

“Horace,” Albus tipped his head in deference to the owner of the room. “I hope that I’m not interrupting anything?”

One couldn’t just say  _ no _ to Albus, especially not when the older man acted so damned contrite and polite to everyone and anyone. Horace could only observe him with a barely revealed frown before remembering himself -  _ and his manners _ \- and flipping the edges of his lips to something more reminiscent -  _ if not exactly adjacent _ \- to a smile.

With a shuddering sigh Horace let the glass in his hand clunk down upon the table, “Of course not Albus, of course not. Come on, come on. Take a seat and shut the door, please. I don’t want anyone else to get the idea I run an open tap.”

With that stated the conversation began again, turning sweetly while Horace returned to nursing at a refilled glass. Minnie’s article in  _ Transfiguration Monthly _ became a key point of interest, Albus’s past as the Transfiguration professor leading to a rather interesting conversation regarding  _ intent _ versus  _ desire, _ and Horace was happy to cede the floor to their words. Pomona took over once that long conversation had finished and questioned Albus as gently -  _ and incessantly _ \- as she could about anything and everything he knew about the uses of aged and frozen Mandrake. It was an interesting topic -  _ if only because Horace knew the inherent value of different (yet analogous) ingredients to Potions and Alchemy, and the near-dead but still present fear that lurked in the back of his mind from the last time Mandrakes had any sort of import to the School _ \- that ran on until even that came to an end. What followed was idle chit-chat, mindless words and voices that meant nothing at all.

It was simple. It was rote. It was just what Horace needed to let his mind drop down to that place where it didn’t need to think on anything at all -  _ troubled instead and roiling beneath the surface with the reason for Albus’s likely visit _ \- and silence could be all he said. He navigated their conversations with just the right  _ ‘Hmm,’ _ and  _ ‘Ahh,’ _ agreeable amounts of gasps and shakes of his head following the words of his peers.

But then he felt  _ it. _ Minnie was busy -  _ regaling them all with her most recent proclivity to end up immersed in a garden that Pomona had set up for her not three months prior _ \- and Pomona was silent but Horace could feel a short brush of another mind against his own. Careful, present, nothing more than a grazing hand against his own.

_ Legilimency.  _

It wasn’t strong, it wasn’t present, it was nothing more at all than someone letting him know that they were there and wanted  _ something. _ A better chance to talk? Most likely. It wasn’t mind reading. It wasn’t a thought pressed into his own mind like the Muggles liked to think. It wasn’t  _ telepathy. _ But it  _ was _ emotion. It was intent. It was a flash of images that meant something, explanation by abstraction.

Horace refused to let them -  _ Albus, he was sure of it _ \- in. Ghostly images of intent and memory were more than he wished to share, even with a colleague. Horace turned away from the request and let himself focus on the drink within his hand until the pressure was so annoying -  _ Albus, absolutely, definitely him _ \- that he could no longer ignore it. 

“Ahem,” Horace cleared his throat and set his glass down upon the table, the group coming to look at him with loose smiles and eyes that were lowered with drink. He looked at his pocket watch -  _ faux Goblin gold, Hogwarts wasn’t exactly known for having the highest salaries out there _ \- and back to his guests. “Well, I think it best we all clear out. I don’t know about you all but today has just been murder on me. I, for one, would like a good night’s rest. But before we adjourn I’d like to thank you for joining me tonight.”

He smiled placidly as he finished speaking, the clear dismissal of his words hidden behind a grin that was perfectly manufactured and maintained to give them all the appearance of honest happiness. It was something he had learned how to do back in his school days, for whatever it was that students underneath the banner of Slytherin were known for -  _ leaders and witches and wizards who could see through the muck of emotion that caressed and blanketed both Gryffindors and Puffs, or a desperate need to dominate where Ravenclaws would distance and separate emotion -  _ they were also known to those who left Hogwarts as perfectly gracious masters of situations. They could present a facade, inhabit it, play the friendliest person in the room or the only one who had any sense about them at all. Perhaps they weren’t exactly the highest achieving of the Houses, perhaps they weren’t always outwardly brave or supportive of others and their ideas or beliefs, but they  _ were _ a more than capable House that observed quiet restraint and thought before all action. A Slytherin was not brash, nor impolite, and Horace felt he embodied that perfectly. Instead of ordering the group away with callousness he thanked them for their time and indebted them to his graciousness.

Graciousness led to hugs being exchanged between everyone present and Horace could do nothing except accept it in turn. 

And keep himself from breaking that look of detached and tipsy happiness when Pomona dropped her hand lower along his backside that was called for. She squeezed, he stiffened, her cheeks turning a flush of red that Horace knew all too well.

Minni was curt as she bade farewell and wandered out the door, her eyes and mind for Albus alone as she passed them by and hooked arms with a winking Pomona. Gods but he knew that woman could be the death of him if she so desired -  _ and in more ways than one, Herbology was quite filled with poisons that only a Master Potioneer could suss out _ \- to end their little affair. Albus merely stood back and waited until the witches were gone before turning towards the door and closing it shut with a wave of his hand. He turned back to face Horace with something approaching seriousness in his eyes and he knew right then that their little disagreement could be ignored for no longer.

He had prepared himself for this eventuality earlier in the day and so took it as a sign from Lady Magic herself that he had managed to weasel out of it for as long as he had. 

Horace sighed and poured himself another drink, quickly looking up towards Albus and gently rocking the crystalline decanter in his hand as a form of question.

“No, no thanks,” Albus waved his hand before sitting back at the table. “We’ve matters to discuss and I’d prefer as clear a head as possible.”

Horace toasted that and gulped down half his drink, “Suit yourself.”

A second or two passed while Horace fidgeted within his chair, “Well then, where would you prefer we start, eh? If you want to drag me over the coals about bringing her here again then I’ve only to say that you know it was right. She needed help and I couldn’t-”

“No,” Albus raised his hand to halt his words. “No, that was the right decision. I may have been a bit of a hothead earlier but you did the right thing for sure. She needed some help and you were there, to have denied her even that would have been unconscionable. An injustice like that should be halted before it starts, and so I’d like to thank you for having done it. But with that said I’d like to talk about her, just not to admonish you, you see.” Albus finished his little spiel and steepled his long fingers atop of the table, his blue eyes a mysterious swirl of age and guile that had Horace’s hackles rising.

Just another thing for him to add into the pile of  _ ‘Albus Fucking Dumbledore.’ _ The old man might have been many things over the extensive period of his life but easy to understand -  _ or read, or know, or like _ \- certainly wasn’t one of them.

In Horace’s mind at least. Others -  _ namely those like Minnie, or Dippet (in some instances and not all, the older man was a codger of the highest order but even he had some shred of political shrewdness about him) or perhaps even Ogg _ \- all managed to find themselves deep with Ablus’s confidence almost from the outset of meeting him, each falling into line without any worries in their heads or hassles to overcome. But no, not Horace, not even now after years and years of knowing the older wizard.

Knowing meant  _ something _ and to Horace they were  _ nothing. _ Nothing that seemed to be stretched to the maximum now that Albus was shifting his gaze and tilting his wizened head just  _ so _ in what Horace thought was an effort to unnerve him. If it  _ was _ that then it was working, that much was for sure, and Horace realized at that moment that he had been sitting there mum for far too long. Well, far too long for polite company. Was any of this polite?

Bugger.

“Well then, what about it? If you’re here about the curse on her arm then I’m no help at all. I’ve never once seen something so dug in like that. The aura, or whatever exactly it is, seems to be laced onto her soul. So far as I can tell it  _ must _ have been with her since early after birth. I can’t tell how else it would be so ingrained. But I’m not the Defense Professor, am I?”

His words were truthful. He couldn’t possibly imagine someone waiting around to lace that curse into the little girl’s arm, and even  _ that _ would have made more sense. One couldn’t just  _ tell _ that a child was a squib right out of the womb. It took years of waiting to see if there was accidental magic and that meant someone must have cared about her for some length of time. Unless they were in such a tizzy as to have marked her and then moved on. 

Horace stiffened as he thought -  _ as quickly as he could _ \- about which version he hated more.

“Well,” Albus broke through Horace’s deadlock, “I have a few more concerns than just that.” He leaned in towards Horace, conspiracy evident in the flicker of his eyes, “She’s  _ projecting. _ Sometimes, not all, but sometimes her mind just spills out. I don’t think she realizes just how much of a madhouse it is in there. Like Azkaban swirling in the head of an eleven-year-old. Thoughts, emotions, each of them running over. Now, don’t you look at me like that Horace-”

Horace, startled by the words, blinked and calmed the stupified expression that had come across his face when Albus opened up about what he had -  _ supposedly _ \- witnessed. The look became placid once again -  _ more like a highly trained mask that all Slytherin’s seemed to innately adopt  _ \- as seconds ticked onwards in the awkward silence.

“Now,” Albus resettled to begin again, voice a gavel that snatched up Horace’s attention. “I don’t know if her mind is  _ normally _ like that or if it’s the result of whatever that curse on her is, but whatever it is she’s seen and done in the past eleven years it’s left an impression on her. Her mind  _ is _ in turmoil. She broke down earlier in her room. I’d left from Dippet’s office and gone off with my head in the clouds until I was startled by  _ her. _ Did she happen to say anything to you? Anything at all? Or did Gringotts happen to notice anything odd when they performed their tests?”

Horace stared.

And stared.

And stared some bit more. Stared hard, stared long, stared and wondered just whether Albus was telling him the truth or looking to find some justification to his paranoia. He could be telling the truth -  _ unlikely _ \- or he could be fibbing -  _ far more likely but no one would ever really believe Horace if he voiced that opinion, and what exactly did he have to lose in telling him everything that had occurred? _ \- to get at something or another.

He talked.

Quietly, and at length, and with more than a few of the details flattened out and spread apart so very thin that his -  _ admittedly self-serving intention of visiting Gringotts _ \- seemed to be just a smidge more selfless than originally intended. Not that it had been selfish to begin with, good heavens he’d never do that  _ just _ for himself. It was just a rather haphazard accident that he wondered at the girl being Pureblood. He  _ might _ have found a reward for his decision but he hadn’t and Albus didn’t need to know about that. Neither did he need to know about exactly what the little girl had said to him upon first meeting. If she was a Seer -  _ and Horace suspected that she  _ **_was_ ** _ indeed _ \- then he would just keep that to himself. What if she  _ saw _ him telling Albus all about her? What would she think then?

Horace, for one, didn’t intend to find out.

\---

There were more than a few moments of life that Bellatrix could recall with perfect clarity. There were some that even dated back to her first few  _ actual _ memories. Little things, bits and bobs, random assortments of reality that had -  _ for some reason or no reason at all _ \- stuck with her more firmly than anything else.

Sitting atop her father’s knee as he bounced her too and fro, a smile on her face and a smile on his. Her mother pulling a small white dress over her head and cinching the tiny threads tightly about her waist while an elf helped to tame her wild mane of black hair. Her Aunt and her Uncle taking them all into the mountains for a winter, far away and so very cold compared to where they lived. 

A summer retreat filled up with heat and laughter and timid explorations into the woods that all ended in her mother halfheartedly chastising them about getting their clothes dirty.

Bellatrix could remember the love that existed within their home, and so as she had grown up so too had she grown into a sense of longing. She felt the absence of that love with greater pain than Andi or Cissa could, young as they were. Bellatrix could help them no longer though.

She loved them dearly and kept herself -  _ just barely _ \- from spilling tears down her cheeks as she hugged them both goodbye. Cissa couldn’t help but rub at her pale blue eyes with a small and too small fist. The little girl mumbled something below her breath about how all of this wasn’t fair, wasn’t fair at all. Bellatrix -  _ in her own mind and not aloud where her parents could hear her _ \- agreed with that sentiment. It  _ wasn’t _ fair, and she knew it. 

But she had also been told to keep quiet about it.

Bellatrix knew that Cygnus had more than enough money and clout with which to purchase a second home in Hogsmeade if he really desired to do so -  _ it would amount to a few knuts to him, and really, who  _ **_didn’t_ ** _ want to live in the picturesque village _ \- and Cissa had tried her very best to convince Bellatrix to convince  _ Cygnus _ to do so. So she had. But, as in almost all things, she was stymied. He had simply told her to stop being petulant and get over it. Everyone went to Hogwarts, she would, her sisters would, and the distance wouldn’t matter.  _ ‘Support your family,’ _ he said,  _ ‘You’re representing us in Slytherin,’ _ he said,  _ ‘Do your duty to your Family and your House and be  _ **_quiet_ ** _.” _

Apparently doing all that didn’t include ensuring her sisters were well taken care of or emotionally safe. Apparently that also didn’t include honouring promises to Andi, or Cissa, or to herself. That didn’t include keeping them all happy to the best of their ability.

Bellatrix bit at her lip and huggled the frail girl tighter to her chest, a soft hand soothing the sobs and weeping before it could become too loud. She looked off towards Andi and communicated in their weird and out of sorts method that seemed more natural than voicing the words themselves. It wasn’t magic, or rather it was not one that they had studied specifically. It  _ was _ magic, but it was magic that they had taken and changed. Both of them were old enough to have learned the basics to Legilimency and Occlumency, and Cygnus and Druella both had drilled them until their heads ached and nothing made sense. No one would be able to read them, no one could invade them. They could block all soft attempts to mess with their thoughts and minds and in the course of learning those defences they had created something unique.

Bellatrix would open up her mind, or Andromeda would catch her attention before opening up her own. Andromeda would answer, or Bellatrix would instead. It wasn’t anything like telepathy. They  _ knew _ that it wasn’t telepathy. But they also knew it was unique. There might have been thousands of variants on the magic that they had forged but their shorthand was unique to them both above all others. It was  _ like _ telepathy, even if it was a conversation in pictures and emotions instead of words or explicit information. It had grown and grown until it became a simple thing for them to impress on the other exactly what was going on in their mind, interpretation of the mess having become akin to breathing. 

Bellatrix used it as she comforted Narcissa, ingrained the younger witch as much as she could with the importance of protecting Narcissa. Herself. Their home, their family. She would be safe while she was away but now it was Andromeda’s turn to stand at the fore and bear the brunt of whatever wrath was visited upon them.

She could only hope it all worked out.

There was no specific moment that she could ask Andromeda if she understood it all. She could only hope, only wish. The train whistled mournfully behind her as she began to extract herself from Narcissa’s iron clutches, a perfunctory curtsy given to her father and mother before she turned away to board. There were people all around her and noises upon noises but Bellatrix could concentrate only on the feeling of home being left behind. She lost sight of them standing there atop the platform as the windows disappeared and a small and narrow hallway presented itself before her instead.

The space was buttressed on either side with the compartments that held the upperclassmen, her peers and those she would need to impress. The last few worries that she carried with her flew away into the ether as she pulled her carefully honed mask down upon her face. There was no emotion, nothing to be sensed or seen, a Pureblood matriarch in all but age. It didn’t matter that she was only eleven, she was here and presenting herself as the future head to one of the oldest and purest Families to have existed in Wizarding Britain.

She would present herself as the highest of her peers regardless of where she actually stood upon the ladder. So, with her head held high and mind set upon the upcoming challenges, Bellatrix strode down the hall and off towards the open seating that housed the rest of the prospective First Year Slytherins.

She would play the game, and she would win.

\---

It was too quiet.

So quiet that there seemed to be nothing in the world except Hermione and the stillness to the air, punctuated only by the purposeful sounds of cooking that had been muted by a simple charm. Hermione knew that this length of peace wouldn’t last, not with what she had been told the day before. All of the other students were set to arrive this afternoon, and in the manner that she should have arrived. But circumstances were different in regards to her admittance and while she was somewhat put off at not experiencing what everyone else was -  _ this was certainly far more boring than a train ride, or she assumed it was at least _ \- she had mostly come to terms with it. She was stuck wandering about the Great Hall or the Kitchens -  _ informed about a secret entrance that opened right up to the Hall _ \- and given nothing to do except watch the Elves.

Which was boring.

They had been interesting at first but something had seemed  _ off _ about them, and their constant acquiescence to any request became boring far too fast. They did their work, the snuck biscuits, life went on.

Or it managed to go on -  _ and in relative peace _ \- until Professor Dumbledore came down to grab her up from the clutches of a cup of apple juice -  _ because apple was better than pumpkin, no matter what these crazy people thought _ \- and sent her off to get dressed for the imminent arrival of the student body and the Sorting that would directly follow.

The old man was kind enough to wait outside of her little room -  _ that she had been assured would have all of its contents sent off to her proper dorm once she was sorted into a House _ \- until she finished getting ready and then escort her to wherever it was that she would meet up with the remainder of the First Years. There was a smile on his face the whole time and something close to tenderness in his voice, quiet and demure and grandfatherly in a manner that she was not used to.

It unnerved and made her happy in equal measure.

He wasn’t mean to her by any stretch of the imagination, nor was he as smug as she had thought he would be -  _ or rather nowhere near as smug and mean and dastardly as the Sisters had been, or as some of the other Professors here were _ \- or kind. He simply  _ was. _ She preferred others to him though, Professor McGonagall most of all. She seemed to be far less inclined towards sternness and had shown a ginger short of affection when Hermione had asked her to explain some of the terms that she read in her textbooks. That the woman had time for her at all was a point in her favour and not one that Hermione would easily forget. She knew too little about this world and while the Library had eventually found itself conquered the flashes of another  _ her _ and the accompanying visions were all strong enough and odd enough that she had felt wary about lingering too long.

The Restricted section had been the most annoying of the spots within the Library, something telling her to  _ run _ while another told her to  _ read. _

She ignored them both.

_ For now. _

The walk from her room to where she needed to be was just as quiet and serene as the time before had been. Professor Dumbledore led her off without a word and Hermione picked at the hem of her uniform while she followed. The clothing was all starched clean and pressed into sharp corners that were neater and cleaner than anything she had ever owned before. It felt  _ odd _ to wear something that seemed so pristine, even though at the same time it felt  _ right. _ She was happy with what it represented. She was happy that soon enough it would have another adornment that would proclaim her House allegiance. A modifier to signal she belonged to somewhere she had never really known. She had spent many hours the past few days musing over where she would be placed, going through textbooks and history until she could only say she was confused and unsure of where she might end up.

Each of the Houses were built on good things and bad, and all of them were storied in a way that meant  _ old _ and  _ filled out. _ There were stuffed to the gills with wizards and witches who had at times been both famous and infamous. Ravenclaw held a certain sort of appeal but then again so did Slytherin. The same couldn’t be said for Hufflepuff though -  _ it was the only House she truly didn’t care for one way or the other, she hadn’t needed any friends before and a House that was built around interpersonal bonds of affection seemed far more anxiety-inducing than anything else _ \- or Gryffindor -  _ a House built atop bullheaded bravery that seemed to be lacking in brains at the best and flat out dangerous at the worst, regardless of their propensity for being labelled as the fiercest of comrades and ardent defenders  _ \- even though they were far more storied and talk about in her texts than the other two.

They were certainly trumped up to virtues and heights that Ravenclaw and Slytherin could never reach. But then again it didn’t matter. Everything she read said the Hat would make the choice and she had nothing else to do except wait and see where it would put her. The Library hadn’t posited anything that would impede her being sorted -  _ not when a sudden bout of rage and anger at the lack of further information had instigated a rather early morning in the Library to read through everything related to the sorting _ \- and now she would sit here and wait. Or walk. Or whatever it was that Professor Dumbledore wanted out of her.

Mostly stand, she thought, coming to a halt beside the old man when they reached the bottom of a massive staircase that led towards what she recognized as the outer courtyard.

“Now we wait?” She asked him timidly, far too aware of her position at his side and feeling small beneath the arched ceilings and aged portraits.

Professor Dumbledore nodded, attempted to wear a smile that ended up appearing more like a grimace, “Now we wait. The remainder of the students will all begin to arrive shortly, they’ve gotten off the train and Ogg should be leading them towards the Castle as we speak.”

Silence descended between them as they waited and Hermione filled herself instead with an awareness of quick fingers running over fabric, of breath entering and exiting her lungs, stinging eyes as she had a staring contest with a portrait of an old woman sitting in a giant pot. Loose stitching fell to her quick fingers and she wondered to herself whether the uniform was made of Muggle textile or something more magical. It  _ felt _ light atop her body but then again she had never owned something like all this. 

Second after second continued to pass by in deepening quietude, Professor Dumbledore only interacting with her once by reaching into one of his many pockets -  _ and by many pockets she meant innumerable pockets, a cacophony of pockets stitched into the multicoloured robe that he wore atop a rather plain grey suit, hues of red and gold sparkling to light as shapes and shades began to change -  _ and offering her a little yellow sweet. She turned him down more out of habit than anything else and he had shrugged at her answer before popping the little candy into his mouth to resume the interminable wait.

And then the doors began to open up, and Hermione felt herself being stuffed full of a fear that threatened to envelop her heart.


	4. Bottled Lightning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild-editing

Everything had only just begun and already Bellatrix knew they were headed in the wrong direction.

Less  _ they. _ More  _ her. _

The nudging blow of an elbow pressed harshly against her shoulder was enough to let her know that the first mistake had been accidental if anything.

She’d fallen asleep.

Sleeping was  _ supposed _ to be for nighttime, was  _ supposed _ to happen deep within her own chambers, her own bed. It was  _ not _ supposed to have occurred on the rather sublime trip from reality to the unreality of Hogwarts. She’d been regaled time after time with tales about the ride from her father and uncle, the space from the train station to train station having been trumped up by their words to be something  _ powerful. _ It should have been a length of time all to her, tenuous moments where she could make an impression on the peers she’d never met before, and some she’d never even heard of.

Pureblood society might have been tight-knit but it wasn’t as strong as it could be, her father made sure she knew that. Families were too insular after Grindelwald’s failed uprising, and doing anything at all except avoiding one another was seen as a horrid mistake. Galas and balls were still expected but if someone wasn’t  _ in _ that particular circle of older families then they weren’t going to  _ ever _ be  _ ‘In.’ _

The safety of intermarried Houses was less a cover and more a target now, detrimental to their overall longevity where before it had meant strength.

Bellatrix knew that she  _ should _ have been out there introducing herself. She knew she  _ should _ have been working to get on the right side of the ruling elite, figuring out the lay of the land and who might be her friends, who might be enemies, and who could be won over through enough effort and conniving words. 

Being the eldest child to House Black afforded her some leeway when it came to structuring the new Slytherin students -  _ her eldest cousins having been matured within the Prewett line meant that even if they held blood they were separate enough to be distinct and any foolishness on their part meant nothing to her, and the last  _ **_actual_ ** _ Black to have attended Hogwarts had left it in good standing, standing  _ **_she_ ** _ would not step into without actually being  _ **_seen_ ** \- but still she had the hardest part to play. The other Houses were better represented. They had siblings, blood-cousins in the same line, or even cousins from the maternal lines. 

She wouldn’t have it easy, and she knew it.

Build up her resources -  _ that being time, goodwill, and friends (if one could call sycophants and followers that) that were beholden to her _ \- and then make the clear statement that House Black was still alive and kicking, willing to step up and reclaim their place while simultaneously reminding everyone why they were the most  _ noble  _ and  _ ancient. _

Her father had demanded it. Even her grandfather had gotten in on it, reaffirming the need to be the best at everything, all the time, never letting a setback even have a  _ chance  _ of occurring.

Her mother was easier, in that respect. She only asked Bellatrix to do her best and not take it too harshly if her ambitions were higher than her reach. But her mother was a Rosier and that baked in need to excel that all Blacks had wasn’t as ingrained in their line. The Rosiers road on coattails; properly chosen husbands were as easy of a way up as backstabbing and politicking. Druella would never understand the pressure that she had been placed under and Bellatrix knew that.

But she’d already royally fucked that up, what with sleeping on the train and all that. Knock one, and she hadn’t even managed to step foot within Hogwarts.

Bellatrix ground her palms against her eyes, colours bursting into light as she muttered out, “Shite.”

\---

The passage off the train was worryingly simple. The upperclassmen had gone on ahead and left the first years with a few Prefects to represent them, two from every House and a Head Boy and Girl for each. The lingering excitement had become infectious even while Bellatrix grappled with her faux pas, a souring mood nowhere near strong enough to derail the sudden excitement at finally being somewhere so incredible.

She was  _ here, _ and even if she had made a mistake she knew she could climb out of it. It wasn’t the end of the world and the fatalistic attitude that had threatened to envelop her when she first awoke slowly began to fade. She  _ would _ climb out of this hole and with all the fervour and energy of a Black.

Lines were formed as soon as they stepped off of the train -  _ ordered by House, she realized, even if it wasn’t intentional and none of them had been sorted yet _ \- and slowly they proceeded until Bellatrix was standing before an empty wooden rowboat. The leering Groundskeeper -  _ Oog, or Ogg, or something otherwise so ridiculous that she had giggled when first she heard it said aloud _ \- pointed and prodded until they all had been moved into the rickety little dinghies. They were rollicking, rolling side to side and so waterlogged that Bellatrix cringed from every bit of wood, only the slightly padded seat safe enough for her to sit on. A word was said, a spell prodded, and then the boats were off with oars unmanned while they slowly drifted out onto the lake. 

Bellatrix would have preferred swimming if she had known this was how students arrived. Or at least she thought that would have been the best method of entry until the silhouette of a creature deep but rising from under the water made itself apparent. Thick lengths of rope -  _ roles and coils that were massive to the point of being nearly thick enough around as Bellatrix was around her middle (which to be quite fair wasn’t exactly very wide at all) _ \- bunched up and rose above the water, round cups with little spikes evident along the length of it. More lengths began to wander and wind between all the boats and Bellatrix blinked once, twice, before deciding that the boat was better, far, far better.

No swimming.

Ever.

\---

The constant shuffle of feet on stone and growing crescendo of children talking as they ascended the staircase towards the Great Hall was a welcome relief to Hermione, bored already of the monotonous nothing that had accompanied the past few minutes. Hermione wasn’t quite certain she could trust the old Professor and had resolutely avoided any small talk. That wasn’t exactly to say that Dumbledore had offered her much; his words came off stiffly to the point where Hermione could tell he was  _ trying _ to be nice, but in his perfunctory and emotionless words he came off as somewhat condescending.

His tone and broadly set stance told Hermione all she needed to know, a hushed-up brusqueness enveloping his form in a way that seemed to say,  _ ‘I do not trust this, or you, and I am  _ **_watching_ ** _.’ _

Hermione couldn’t trust the words not said between them. Absolutely  _ couldn’t. _ The Sisters had beaten out that sort of instinctual trust in authority until everyone larger than Hermione had come off as being  _ wrong. _ Sins and Salvation weren’t the sorts of subjects to leave her much time for camaraderie and commiseration, or even the general sort of trust placed easily between most children and adults.

She rocked backwards on her heels, hands clasped and arms loose, wary for any sign of movement from the Professor.

Nothing, or rather nothing yet.

Nothing that could change to  _ something _ at the first sign of  _ danger. _ Danger from her, danger from her  _ episodes. _ The people in charge might have changed, and she knew that perhaps her circumstances had as well -  _ no one here would slight her for doing something like starting a fire by pointing her finger, or unlocking doors by wishing hard enough, _ \- but good or bad could sour in an instant. Her aggression -  _ or the lack thereof, the move to isolate herself as much as possible was a constantly creeping impulse _ \- could be taken as a temperamental effect of her upbringing, she knew that, had read in books that argued for nature or nurture as well as a balance of each. Maybe she wasn’t so unusual, and perhaps the staff here had dealt with other children who had been forced to live in horrible places, relegated to the sidelines of society and foisted about as someone to  _ avoid, _ as some form of devil incarnate. 

Maybe they hadn’t. Maybe she  _ was _ unusual. Maybe they wouldn’t right every wrong that had been delivered upon her, maybe they wouldn’t see her as some angel. Hope for the best -  _ or at least account for it, she had survived on the kindness of strangers before and wouldn’t exactly ignore it if given _ \- and prepare for the worst.

The worst things being…  _ something. _

Something she couldn’t name, something she couldn’t describe to herself except while deep in a nightmare or down in one of her  _ episodes. _

A painful chill swept up Hermione’s spine, it began somewhere in her back and crept up vertebra by vertebra until it seemed she’d been electrified. She shivered, took notice of Professor Dumbledore staring at her and instead steeled herself as much as possible -  _ which wasn’t much, but was enough _ \- until he looked away. This all just felt so  _ unreal. _ A waking dream, one which she couldn’t help but enjoy even as portions of it felt nightmarish. One moment she was standing there beside Professor Dumbledore -  _ as absolutely silent, as absolutely still as she could possibly be _ \- and the next moment she was moving.

Walking up the steps, remembering -  _ although remembering wasn’t exactly the right word to describe it, she knew it wasn’t but couldn’t figure out anything else that didn’t sound  _ **_wrong_ ** _ , there was no other way but to say that she  _ **_remembered_ ** _ even if it brought a derisive sneer to her lips _ \- a toad and the little boy who had lost it. Remembering a blonde head of hair that had been trimmed in an aged style she hadn’t seen in years except maybe in old portraits that were motheaten and mouldy, the boy angry at her for some reason that she could not name but could react to.

_ Anger _ was something Hermione knew,  _ anger _ was something she could control. 

Usually.

Not now. Not here, not as she stood atop the steps and stood down below, listening to voices that were not there and the percussive thud of her own heartbeat twinned across time and space.

Hermione knew she was different from this memory. The not-dream said so. Not-Her said she was something  _ wrong. _

But there was no time left to ruminate on the splitting thoughts and that was just as well. The thoughts hurt, and focusing upon them too long only brought her pain and  _ danger. _ A hurt that enveloped her mind whenever the memories assaulted, overtook and sought to crash back into her mind. 

Memories that she had thought delusions until only a few days ago.

But time had flown and now Hermione was just as confused -  _ if not more so _ \- than before.

“Ah, they’re finally here.” Dumbledore straightened up beside her, a clipped smile gracing where Hermione stood and a second passing before she judged it as genuine, sincere and happy.

And  _ that _ made her angry. Why? She didn’t know. Couldn’t reason it, couldn’t square it with anything she knew. That happiness in his glance had brought to life a smouldering fire deep within her soul, the bubbling acidity only accentuating the mental turmoil that had been growing for however long they’d been standing there. 

The shivering cold that had her quaking where she stood was replaced with something molten and fluid, but Hermione could do nothing about it as the students rounded the bend in the stairwell down below them.

\---

When the gaggle of students finally came to a rest before the massive doors that led inside of Hogwarts, Bellatrix nearly broke. 

The flush of nervousness and apprehensiveness had been building since she’d stepped off of the dinghy, and now she was beginning to feel the lull as adrenaline fled for greener pastures. None of the children who were supposed to be joining -  _ or at least those that hoped to be joining _ \- Slytherin had been willing to interact with her. Or rather, none of them had found her all that interesting enough -  _ or threatening enough _ \- to say anything to. Was this a good thing? Anonymity did happen to hold a certain appeal and it was certainly better than going out and painting a target on her back before the first day was done with.

But this was a poor setting. If no one at all would take her seriously then how in the world could she ever expect to dominate any facet of her soon-to-be House?

No time to answer that. They were all moving up the staircases with a rapidity drawn about by the excitement and wonder of finally being  _ here. _ Bellatrix wasn’t exactly immune to those mysterious forces and soon enough she felt herself melt away to the periphery of the group. It was an easy move to make even if it wasn’t her initial choice, and so instead she let herself drift away to a passive movement. Each step forward was a weight lifted off of her back; worries about Narcissa and Andromeda fell away, the worry over her impending -  _ if one could call seven years  _ **_impending_ ** \- engagement dropping to the back of her mind as interest and delight took centerstage.

One by one, breath by breath, each step higher and higher until eventually they were  _ there. _

Here.

From this point forward she would be allowed -  _ so long as she didn’t die, or find herself expelled over something ridiculous that her father couldn’t get her out of _ \- to wander up and down throughout the halls and floors until she was filled to the brim with power and the knowledge to sustain it. Engagement be damned, she  _ would _ use all this time to better herself, she  _ had _ to. A rolling shiver overtook her when the nervousness blasted back to the forefront of her mind, a leaden ball settling into her stomach and cold sweat gnawing at her palms. Bellatrix shook her head and moved to keep up with the group, coming to a rest when they had crested the last staircase and all her momentum turned into a gentle hum of energy.

Energy reacting and contracting, one child bouncing from the other to another, back and forth. The girl to her right seemed to be in an elated mood, the boy off to her left as well. They had smiles that were small but unmistakable for what they were.

Joy.

Bellatrix breathed deeply of the dry air, relaxed in the taste that said _old,_ that said this was a place of _importance._ _This_ was where she was meant to be.

Glanced around again and bypassed another girl with frizzy, untamed hair. Rocked side to side in anticipation that was mounting, all of it sent crashing into a spiral of anxiety when she looked forward over the lip of the stair and onto the landing.

The figure standing before her inspired both a measure of awe and disgust. The awe was owed for his role in stopping Grindelwald, an act that had cemented his status as the undisputed most powerful wizard of their time -  _ or so she was told, often and loudly, usually against her own growing opinions that were nurtured by the numerous books that she had read, each of them pointing to far more powerful practitioners outside of Britain, and while Bellatrix was quite certain that he was powerful (Grindelwald  _ **_had_ ** _ managed to wreak havoc all across the continent and America for the better part of a decade with absolutely no one to stop him) she was also certain that he wasn’t anywhere near as amazing as Salazar Slytherin, nor Morgana or Merlin -  _ and an esteemed Professor with numerous publications and theories. That didn’t exactly engender much awe to Bellatrix -  _ not since many of his earlier theories had been riding on the coattails of her own esteemed family members  _ \- but apparently everyone else was willing to fall over at his feet.

Not her. Even if it  _ was _ an interesting topic of conversation and his status as a leader in Britain was well cemented.

Not her, not with growing up within a household that practised far older methods of magic and kept to rituals and reasons beyond anyone in the pathetic Light. With Dumbledore as their chief proponent she was doomed -  _ something she knew all too well and was still happy about _ \- to see him as beneath her. He stepped and trod over everything that her family believed in, everything that their Bloc voted on or desired. No change was too great, no dismissal of custom or tradition too powerful and no well-established belief capable of stopping him. He would tear it all down in the name of progress, personal choice or history be damned.

A shoulder brushed up against her with an unrestrained edge of excitement, incessant enough that Bellatrix found herself being pushed forward by the crowd of first years until she was carried straight through the massive doors to the Great Hall. No time to think about anything else, only the momentum carrying her off -  _ and none of the photographs that she had seen or diagrams printed in textbooks preparing her at all for the expanse of sky high up above her, or the twinkle of stars (some of which she recognized for the namesakes of kin) that seemed as real as anything else within the hall _ \- and no time left for righteous anger at the man who had greeted them.

And off to the Sorting she went.

\---

Hermione wasn’t exactly sure what came over her. For just a moment there was  _ something _ happening that went beyond her ability to comprehend it. She was there and herself for a second and then a young girl who looked to be about her age and height had come walking forward as the rest of the crowd milled closer to the door. She was forced into following their movements and Dumbledore seemed to wash his hands of her right then and there, leading them off and paying her no mind.

Just as well. She wasn’t sure if she could have kept that rising tension from remaining hidden if he’d kept close to her. His impassivity and passive avoidance had become too much for her to bear. She couldn’t view herself now as anything other than happy at his disappearance.

Besides, there was something far more important for her to focus on. That moment where she lost herself was one of repetition. Déjà vu, the echo of pressing bodies that weren’t there and a moment where she knew every person there except for one. One face that had gleamed out amid the whole of them, all the rest shiny and new. Hermione had stopped and gaped with wide eyes, her brain spitting fire as she fell back into herself with an awareness that whatever had just occurred -  _ no matter how quickly, and no matter if it was some fleeting memory or illusion or hallucination that proved the Sisters were right and she really  _ **_was_ ** _ just going crazy _ \-  _ had _ occurred. It happened and couldn’t be ignored. 

That girl she had focused on was trouble through and through, and the lacing of scar-tissue upon Hermione’s arm had pinged with fervent heat. Strong, powerful, then it had fallen away.

Passed in the same moment they all were swept beneath the arches of the door, onward toward what she hoped were better things and better places.

The déjà vu followed with her but in a small enough quantity that she could set it aside and replace it with a general nervousness that quickly hopped onto the centre stage of her mind. One foot after the other, one step leading towards the next as she jostled elbows and listened in on the hushed whispers of conversation rolling from the students seated along the sides. They were waiting - _and had somehow made it up here via another route that Hermione hadn’t known existed, no sight or sound having alerted her to their arrival_ \- to watch as the _ickle_ _babies_ were named to their House, joining the throngs of all the others.

Gryffindor, all of them too brash and bullheaded. Too unwilling to do what was best for the individual and worried not at all with anything resembling tact.

Ravenclaw, far too uptight and focused. Sure it might be fun to read through  _ every _ book twice over but when would she find the time to apply herself?

Hufflepuff, too hands-on. Touchy-feely? Too focused on their interpersonal relationships, their  _ close bonds. _ Hermione had lived through enough bonding experiences that had soured to want any more of those.

Which left Slytherin and its own host of issues, the most pressing of which was that they were known for being loners -  _ which meant she might actually fit in there even if she hadn’t exactly ever aspired to that status until everyone else was too frightened of her to have much of a chance at anything else _ \- and being worried about their own self-interests over others. If the unkind words she had read in some of her history texts were true -  _ and they may well have been, though she was lax to believe them  _ \- and the Great Wizarding War that had preceded the Muggle World War was run by Dark Witches and Wizards that had been churned out by Slytherin and Durmstrang, well. It wasn’t where she should go.

But easy research said otherwise. Excepting Salazar Slytherin himself and the common association with snakes, there weren’t very many Dark Wizards or Witches that had come from Slytherin. Even Morgana -  _ alternatively praised and demonized _ \- had been grey enough to be viewed either way.

So where would she go?

\---

That air of nervousness spread from student to student until even Horace was watching the children file in -  _ or, more appropriately stated, wandering in as the gaggle of pushing bodies moved without purpose or direction while Dumbledore strutted about up front _ \- with doxies flitting about in his stomach. He couldn’t exactly state  _ why _ he was so on edge and to some degree he wasn’t sure it needed a reason or had one.

He was just anxious.

And being anxious had turned a sour note in his stomach, left him squirming his way through a round of handshakes and greetings with the Slug Club as they took their seats again. Anxiety that left him looking about from side to side, palms sweatier than they had been in ages.

Even the tipsy half-drunk magic of Minnie was beginning to grate on his nerves, and every other member of the faculty that seemed to be in high spirits was only adding to it. He’d never felt further from the merriment. Maybe it was just jitters, maybe he was getting old.

Didn’t really matter, did it?

A quick few sips of his drink managed to settle the unwarranted emotions and for a moment he could relax. The disorder turned away as he leaned back further into his chair and politely clapped for the few students making their way through the Sorting. They went up one by one and while at first it had been an amazement to listen to the Hat as it droned on with its silly poem it was now nothing except mindless murmuring. He’d missed it -  _ same as the last year _ \- and came back to the world with two students down, who knew how many more to go.

Jeremiah Abbot came next, joining with Hufflepuff and leaving Horace one more sip down the end of his bottle -  _ Ogden’s be damned, the elvish whisky that he had managed to win in a poker game was twice as strong and three times as smooth, a gentle and loving caress that was more inviting the longer that he sipped from it _ \- with far too many to go.

_ “Black, Bellatrix!” _ Screamed out the Hat, fully aware that it  _ needn’t _ scream _ \- all of the students were quiet as they awaited judgement and the older students had learned within their first year how to keep quiet and whisper without others hearing _ \- even as it did so.

Black. Black? How in the world had he-

_ “Slytherin!” _

Horace let out the breath he hadn’t known he’d stopped up, the thought passing through his head as it quieted down amid the clapping. His own two hands were clapping as well -  _ and when had that happened? _ \- as the little girl wandered off towards her new home. He smiled, rueful and questioning, worrying at the thought of teaching old Nigelus’s descendant. She would likely be just as much of a firebrand as Cygnus had been, even if he hadn’t stayed in Hogwarts past his third year. He knew she’d either be the end of him or would fly on through without a single incident, especially if she managed to take after her Druella more than Cygnus.

No one could ever claim to hold a grudge against the Rosiers and while he hadn’t had the pleasure of dealing with too many of them, those that he had were all too direct to ever be angry at. 

But there was really nothing for him to do except find, he supposed.

\---

_ “Jane, Doe!” _

The Hat screamed out her -  _ false _ \- name, and Hermione caught herself for a moment in an odd sort of space. Everything around her was real and nothing was real at all. Here she was standing and ready while a name -  **_not_ ** _ her name, it just simply  _ **_wasn’t_ ** \- beckoned her forth with no warning. Which might not have exactly been true if she had been paying better attention to those who’d come before her -  _ a girl named Bellatrix having caught her eyes, the same from the entranceway and still just as mysterious now as then _ \- and if she’d just accepted that the school would call her Jane instead of Hermione.

It was still a shock. A second of lagging behind while her mind caught up, and then she moved.

The stool she was led to was old, crooked and leaving her leaning forward with hands pressed down into her knees as she braced against the awkward position. She watched all the other students still waiting to be sorted and noted the flash of fear that burst within her chest when they disappeared from view, obscured by the talking hat.

_ ‘I’m more than a simple talking Hat. And my, oh my,’ _ a voice spoke into her mind, its tone faded with age and tinged at the edges with a hint of something that didn’t quite sound real to Hermione. It continued on unaware or uncaring of her confusion,  _ ‘Were that I not bound to silence by the actions of Headmasters, I think I might have needed to have a talk with old Dippet. You’ve certainly been through a lot, haven’t you? And in such a short amount of time. Or long, I suppose.’ _

Hermione thought on what it said but for a moment as the heated feeling of being the centre of attention came roaring back. Her mind envisioned every other student staring at her beneath the hat and as the seconds ticked on blankly for far too long, she buckled. 

Why was it taking so long? It was just  _ odd. _

_ ‘Well, I have to say that you’re odd as well.’ _ The Hat spoke again, its voice curious and prodding as it touched her mind with the gentlest of caresses.  _ ‘You’re an odd one in your past and in your future. I don’t believe I can rightly make the same choice again, not now, not with how different you are.’ _

_ ‘What?’ _ Hermione questioned it, suddenly alert and wavering between fear and anxiousness at the weird way that it was addressing her.

The Hat merely chuckled as it replied,  _ ‘I don’t know if I can make  _ **_any_ ** _ of those decisions anymore. You sure do read a lot, don’t you? I have a firm look at everything. So much, so very much. But you can’t see it, can you? And if I try to tell you any of it I’m stopped, almost as if you’re a different person. Stifled. What magic did you manage to get yourself into, girl? I can’t see the ending to your story but I  _ **_can_ ** _ feel it. And you’ve not yet made up your mind on where you want to be. So opposite, this time. So adamant before. Anywhere but Hufflepuff or Slytherin, now it’s all just… inverted. Well, which would you prefer?’ _

The seconds continued to stretch on while Hermione absorbed what the Hat had said, the questions and revelations -  _ such as they were, so confusing and half-formed _ \- rattling around her mind and pinging harshly against solid walls whenever they landed. The confusion remained and second after second she felt the fear and pain within her mind grow further, tighter and tighter until she felt that she might snap. Hermione was upset at this situation and the  _ thing _ inside of her that she knew as Hermione felt small, tired and frightened. Ready to fall to pieces. The heartbeat in her chest -  _ starting calm and then fast, rolling along between extremes that soared and fell through the earth _ \- stuttered and what felt like static began to cling to all her extremities. 

A wave built, a pressure in her head, the Hat poking and prodding and sorting through her unto-

_ Crack! _

The sound reverberated throughout the Great Hall as a whiplash of magic broke free from Hermione’s core, stretching out and up. Higher and higher it rose until eventually some portion of it met the enchanted ceiling and a flash of blue flame and electricity came crashing back down to her body.

_ ‘Slytherin!’ _ the Hat screamed as the bolt of magic made contact, its voice now echoing around a silent room and accompanied only by the rush of Hermione lifting the hat and leaving. She tossed towards Professor Dumbledore’s waiting -  _ if loose, like his slack-jawed face _ \- hands. No one moved to stop her as she headed off towards the tables wreathed in silver and green, no one clapping and no one cheering.

Just as well, though Hermione, her mind a frightened roil of spliced images that she had seen at the moment of connection.

\---

Horace felt himself lose it. Well and truly gone, mind blanked as he spilt his -  _ admittedly expensive and so very much preferred  _ **_not_ ** _ dropped _ \- liquor onto the table and stared at the retreating witchling with mouth in the shape of an asphyxiating fish.

Mouth open. Mouth closed.

Mouth open. Mouth closed.

One second. Two seconds.

A rush of air as he breathed in the ozone, felt it caress and burn his nostrils with all the tender care of a lightning strike. He stared -  _ so high up, so very, very high _ \- to where the ethereal magic had struck the ceiling. The display of raw magic had been unexpected to say the very least and while the rest of the staff were busy picking themselves up -  _ some belatedly clapping, others mimicking himself and staring upwards without an ounce of shame (at least  _ **_he_ ** _ had stopped staring like some blithering idiot) _ \- to move on with the rest of the evening.

A Hat Stall was a rare occurrence.  _ Extremely _ rare. So very rare in fact that Minerva was the only person he could remember having undergone one, and she had always been coy on  _ why _ it had occurred.

A Hat Stall was unusual, but not unexpected. But that left the worrisome question of what in Merlin’s good name had happened to  _ end _ it.


End file.
